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Today we have some security updates from Google’s side. If we remember correctly Liberia had a nasty surprise yesterday. They woke up without Internet. Having a small population the situation wasn’t that hazardous but the potential of the Mirai botnet is still a problem. The attackers weren’t found and we don’t know who is going to be next and when it’s going to happen.

DDoS attack from Mirai malware ‘killing business’ in Liberia

The DDoS attacks come from the same malware responsible for last month’s disruptions in the US

The malware behind last month’s massive internet disruption in the U.S. is targeting Liberia with financially devastating results.

This week, a botnet powered by the Mirai malware has been launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on IP addresses in the African country, according to security researchers.

“The DDoS is killing our business,” he said over the phone. “We have a challenge with the DDoS. We are hoping someone can stop it.”

The employee declined to have his name published because he was not authorized to speak for his company. The attacks began a few days ago, he said, but not all Liberian internet providers were affected. Read more…

The population of US was also targeted last month before the Liberia incident but because the conditions were unfavorable for a serious threat and the damage was minimum the case went unnoticed. But after Liberia’s unfortunate events, Google released a new Chrome update that can stop a DOS attack.

Google Releases Security Updates for Chrome

Google has released Chrome version 54.0.2840.87 for Windows and Mac, and version 54.0.2840.90 for Linux. These new versions address a vulnerability that, if exploited, may allow an attacker to create a denial-of-service condition.

US-CERT encourages users and administrators to review the Chrome Releases(link is external) page and apply the necessary updates.

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The following article is about a massive attack against a country. The attacker managed to shut down the internet of a WHOLE country. It sounds more like a movie scenario but it’s true. It’s the first time actually that I heard of an attack this big. I know that hackers can manage to do a successful attack on a political figure, a very big business but a whole country?

This article is from Forbes everybody so you bet that it’s damn serious.

Someone Just Used The Mirai Botnet To Knock An Entire Country Offline

Last month, the Mirai botnet emerged from the shadows and directed its fury at security expert Brian Krebs. A few weeks later, the DNS servers at Dyn fell victim and many of the biggest sites on the Internet went dead for millions of Americans. Now it appears that Mirai knocked an entire country offline.

IF you read the article you may notice that Libia has a population of 4.5 Million, and only 10% have Internet so that’s half a million. There are only 2 internet service providers and they both share the same optic fiber cable. The attack wasn’t that big of a deal on a Whole World point of view.

The problem here is that it was an attack and a successful one. Whatever the sender wanted to find out, he did. It’s a functional digital nuke.

Mirai botnet attackers are trying to knock an entire country offline

One of the largest Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks happened this week and almost nobody noticed.

Since the cyberattack on Dyn two weeks ago, the internet has been on edge, fearing another massive attack that would throw millions off the face of the web. The attack was said to be upwards of 1.1Tbps — more than double the attack a few weeks earlier on security reporter Brian Krebs’ website, which was about 620Gbps in size, said to be one of the largest at the time. The attack was made possible by the Mirai botnet, an open-source botnet that anyone can use, which harnesses the power of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

This week, another Mirai botnet, known as Botnet 14, began targeting a small, little-known African country, sending it almost entirely offline each time. Read more…

Now imagine yourself sitting at the computer, as usual, preparing to upload that photo you took a few hours ago and about to check some facebook comments when suddenly in the middle of your session the browser won’t load the page. You refresh the page and you see on the screen “No internet service”.

After you try again you restart your computer, you check the router and you see a red led light flashing. After an hour you become tired of waiting and you call your internet service provider just to hear these words “We are having some technical problems. Sorry for the inconvenience.”